The New York Times reports he resigned Tuesday after company investors pressured him to immediately step down. His resignation comes about a week after he started a leave of absence from the company.

"I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moment in my personal life I have accepted the investors request to step aside as that Uber can go back to building rather than be distracted with another fight," Kalanick said in a statement.

Kalanick founded the ride-hailing company in 2009, but it's seen quite a lot of public relations turmoil this year.

Uber's been battling an intellectual property lawsuit after self-driving car company Waymo — a Google spinoff — accused it of stealing trade secrets.

And a former Uber employee claimed she reported being sexually harassed at the company but that the human resources department repeatedly ignored her. The accusation led to more reports of harassment and bullying at Uber.

Despite his resignation, Kalanick still controls a majority of Uber's voting shares and will stay on its board of directors.